Talk:AFOH/@comment-26788124-20161214142326/@comment-24882568-20161215154647
OOC: Not too sure on the high shock thing rounds, but I hope you do realize that the radioactivity of uranium is what powers a nuclear reactor. Nuclear reactors use controlled fission to heat up water, which is super heated, sent through some piping, under pressure, and then comes out as steam once it's unpressurized a small bit, which is then used to turn 1 or more steam turbines connected to a electric generator for each one, which then produces the resulting power. There is a very good example of altered uranium which is inherently more stable and less radioactive: It's called depleted uranium, usually the by-product of a nuclear reactor running it's course(among other by-products), or centifuging, and is what the US oh so loves to make tanks with and their ammo with these days(IRL), what with the DU armor on the Abrams and DU APFSDS in general for basically anything that fires APFSDS. Depleted uranium is uranium that has been depleted of U-235, which is the most common isotope in extracted uranium that is fairly radioactive and easy to fission(unlike U-238, the most common isotope, and the most stable of uranium isotopes), and is what actually produces the power in nuclear reactors. U-235 actually has a tendency to fission when hit by a fast neutron, but U-238 will tend to absorb the neutrons thrown at it(not that that's bad in the nuclear reactor, as it produces plutonium, the most common component of a nuclear bomb because nuclear reactors can generate so much of it that if you have several, you can easily make one bomb in about a day with the assembled materials, 14 days to get a bomb(most of it to manufacture it, not to actually get the material for it), and that was back in 1945.), which means U-238 is basically useless in anything but a nuclear reactor. U-235 is what is used to make uranium bombs, with U-238 centifuged from it and discarded into some disposal. Which is why the US oh so loves it, because it can cheaply make APFSDS with DU, as it can with the DU armor on the Abrams, without having to expensively mine for tungsten or get it from trade. But U-238 is no good for power generation or much anything else, really, other than bombarding it with neutrons to get higher level elements such as plutonium or as DU in the many things the US does with DU. To put it rather simply, by using something that is less radioactive, you produce less power, and will need to be refueled more often than with a reactor using standard refined uranium. And your still going to need a fairly heafty amount of radiation shielding, if that's what you were hoping to reduce. U-238 may be less radioactive and less likely to fission, but you still need some fairly good radiation shielding for the radiation it does produce, and your still going to end up with something that is similar weight, with less power, less overall fuel lifetime, and a lot more by-product that is nigh useless. You tried, and may have sounded like a good idea, but it just doesn't really work in practice.